


Butterflies

by ticketlove



Category: Ticketlove(band)
Genre: IMAGINE DATING... COULDNT BE KIHEI, M/M, hate this fic, tjese bitches mad dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 22:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18040232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticketlove/pseuds/ticketlove





	Butterflies

“Hey—-! Kiheiiiiii—-!” Kihei hears, although faintly, a call coming from just beyond his bedroom, and he debates whether or not it’s actually worth getting up for, since it seems Rai has no intention of meeting in the middle and just coming to Kihei’s room. More likely than not, Rai is just too lazy to get up and get himself a glass of water, but he might’ve accidentally broken the microwave (again) or hell, maybe Rai got his head stuck in the wooden chair (AGAIN) and Kihei could take some compromising photos. The possibilities really were endless. Kihei exhales and gets up from his chair, abandoning his work momentarily and pushing in his chair as he makes the torturous venture of a whole 5 feet from one end of his room to the other. 

 

“What is it this time?” Kihei says, letting his annoyance seep into his usually sugar-sweet voice, before he gets to see the (surprisingly valid) reason he had for being called in, making him stop in his tracks and a “Wha… I… Uh….” trails out of his mouth, a collection of abandoned excuses trying to form a complete sentence.

 

Rai exaggerates a frown and gives a loud, fake sigh, tilting his head down and hunching his body in an attempt to make himself look sad and dejected. “Well, if that’s how you’re going to be, Kihei, I suppose we can just leave…” He says, patting the person standing next to him on the back. “I suppose we aren’t wanted here, huh, Ryujiro?” And, next to him, does, in fact, stand Ryujiro, smiling a little awkwardly, a little nervously, with one hand shoved in his jacket pocket and the other at his side, giving a little wave when he sees Kihei come out of his room. 

 

Kihei all but shoves Rai out of the way, maybe even to the ground, for all he cares, on his way to Ryujiro. Rai huffs indignantly as Kihei takes Ryujiro’s hands in his own and looks up, smitten, smiling, happy, oh so happy, at his boyfriend, speechless, always speechless, every time, as if it were the first. “We ran into each other at the station ‘nd hung out for a little while. Top solidarity and all that stuff.” Rai says. “A little bold of you to assume he came here to see  **you,** ya know.” 

 

Rai’s playfully mocking words are a useless endeavor, left ignored and forgotten, falling on empty ears. Kihei and Ryujiro are already in a world of their own, as per usual, and Rai is left to do nothing but awkwardly look on as Ryujiro leans down to kiss Kihei on the forehead. Kihei hums pleasantly, a sign of gratitude, and closes his eyes in a moment of bliss. He smiles, Rai notices, not a smile plastered forcefully on his face as he talks to fans, nor a vindictive grin as he one-ups Rai for the millionth time that day, but one that’s genuine, happy, soft and natural. It comes out subconsciously, it’s not a show, it’s an honest expression of emotion that comes once in a blue moon. 

 

The smile fades as quickly as it appears, the second Ryujiro pulls away Kihei’s face is as stoic as ever, is eyes narrowing as he looks across at Rai. “Is there something you need?” He asks, his voice not quite as malicious as his countenance. 

 

“Don’t say it like that…” Ryujiro says, flashing an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Rai. I guess we’ll be going?” Kihei, still holding Ryujiro’s hands, walks backwards, dragging the two of them into his room. His back unintentionally bumps against the doorframe, and Rai tries to keep his laughter at bay as Kihei embarrassingly looks behind himself and readjusts, eventually victorious, and the two of them disappear into the tiny dorm bedroom as Ryujiro closes the door with his foot behind him. 

 

The rooms the same as always, Ryujiro notices, the same greyish walls, the same messy desk, the same jumble of mismatched clothes thrown into the closet (some lacy costumes peek out between the sweaters and pants and Ryujiro quickly looks away), the same yellowish light supplied by the lamp, the same pink plaid bedsheets, the same messy desk, the same display cases (though it seemed there was one new butterfly, a really pretty black one). The few differences stuck out, though, particularly…. 

 

“Is this my shirt?” 

 

Ryujiro walks over to the small bed, adorned by a collection of blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals, and grabs a pillow near the front end. Instead of a pillowcase around it as there are on the others, there’s a t-shirt, and Ryujiro turns it over in his hands a few times. It’s one of his work-out shirts, he knows, it’s old and worn and the skull design on it is somewhat faded from its many trips through the washing machine and back. He puts it up to his face and breathes in, smelling a hint of sweat, of course, he used to exercise in it, but mostly his own cologne, and he can tell that Kihei’s flowery perfumes are starting to stick, too. Every time he manages to get some of his clothes back from Kihei’s iron grip he ends up smelling like roses or cherry blossoms or orchids, whatever it may be, for the next week and a half. 

 

Kihei turns to face Ryujiro, and when he sees the makeshift pillowcase his face flushes a deep, bright red. Usually, Kihei doesn’t have any shame- he’s been caught red handed stealing hoodies, and he makes his every whim verbalized the second it crosses his mind, but for once, he’s left speechless, his eyes going between the pillow and Ryujiro’s face as his mouth opens, slightly, agape. “Y-You can take it off… I uh… I ran out of pillowcases.” It’s a lie, of course, Kihei probably has a fresh stack of clean cases laundered and ready for use, but he just chose not to, well, actually use them. 

 

“It’s fine.” Ryujiro says, putting the pillow back in its rightful place, carefully in the middle of a large pile of pinks and whites, and it becomes an outlier, demanding all kinds of attention. “You can keep it. You probably get more use out of it than I would, anyways.” 

 

“Besides,” Ryujiro starts, slowly, getting up from the bed and coming over to wrap his arms around Kihei’s stomach, pulling him in close. “I think it’s cute.” He rubs his hands up and down on Kihei’s back, comforting, and Kihei’s tense shoulders relax into his touch. Ryujiro looks behind Kihei, down at the desk and notices the scattered, empty jars, half filled bottles of rubbing alcohol, the unmounted pinning board, and resin molds, along with butterflies and a few beetles kept in airtight plastic bags. “Sorry. Were you working?” Ryujiro asks, his arms dropping down, whilst Kihei’s still remain tight around his waist. 

 

Kihei reluctantly pulls away to look at the desk behind him again. “Oh!” He exclaims, suddenly, reminded that he was, in fact, working, work which he had dutifully abandoned the second he had laid his eyes on Ryujiro. “Yeah, no, I’ll clean it up, it’s fine.” The fact that Kihei instantly rejects himself and his hobbies, pushing his interests away… it puts a sour taste in Ryujiro’s mouth. 

 

Ryujiro is silent, for a second, before he makes an offer, turning over the possibilities in his head a few times until his decision is made. “Can you show me how to do this stuff, too? I think it’s pretty cool.” Although Ryujiro would never admit it, he’s also a little bit squeamish, but if his cute little Kihei could handle it, why wouldn’t he be able to? 

 

“Ehh… Ryu-chan~ you don’t have to if you don’t wanna.” Kihei says, capping some of the alcohol bottles and gathering up his square resin molds. “I know it’s yucky!” It’s something Ryujiro had noticed, before, and he notices it again. Kihei hiding himself. His interests. Tucked behind a childlike persona that took years to master. Ryujiro tries, he really does, to peel back the layers, to find who Kihei really is, to get him to open up. To find out why Ryujiro still hasn’t met his parents. Why Kihei never uses public bathrooms alone. Why he never wants to swim, and why he protested so hard their plans to go to the beach for summer. Why Kihei never lets anyone else touch his phone. Why Kihei is never willing to show off his butterfly knife tricks for anyone except for Ryujiro, Yamada, or Rai. 

 

It’s a process, though. And everything starts somewhere. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.” Ryujiro says, and he’s already pulling out the small wooden folding table Kihei keeps under his bed for when he has company. Ryujiro grabs two cushions from the bed for them to sit on, and pats the one next to him as an offering for Kihei to fill the empty space. “Kiheiiiiii…” Ryujiro whines, slightly, and finally, finally Kihei gives, grabbing some of his supplies and dumping them on the table before crossing the threshold and sitting on his designated cushion, yet still angling himself so he can throw his legs over Ryujiro’s lap. Of course. 

 

Kihei lays out a few different specimen of butterfly on the table, each with their own unique colors, patterns, and shapes. Ryujiro’s eyes are instantly drawn to one that’s pink and yellow, and slightly fuzzy-looking. It’s tiny, not even a few inches long, but he can tell that’s his favorite, cute and small and bright. “Can I do this butterfly?” Ryujiro says, and he carefully picks up the sealed bag with the little insect in it. “It reminds me of you.” 

 

Kihei glances over at the bag and he giggles. “Ryu-chan, dummy, that’s a moth, not a butterfly. It’s a Rosy maple moth.” 

 

“Wait, really? How can you tell?” Ryujiro is embarrassed, slightly, and he feels his face heat up as Kihei takes the plastic bag and carefully pulls the little bug out, carefully holding it in a way that Ryujiro figures must be deliberate. 

 

“Mmm, see, you can actually tell pretty easily, like if you look at the antennae, they look pretty soft, right, almost like a feather? With all the little hairs coming off? That lets you know it’s a moth. Like, see, this one’s a Painted Lady butterfly, and you can see…” Kihei points at one of the butterflies that had already been pinned to the board, and he goes on and on about how the antennae are longer, thinner, with little bulbs on the end. Ryujiro doesn’t really understand a lot of what he says, and some of this vocabulary goes a little over his head (what even is a frenulum, anyways?), but he still pays attention the best he can. “Sorry for droning on.” Kihei says, apologetically, and reaches across the table to grab a large, black butterfly in a bag. “I’ll pin this one up. It reminds me of Ryu-chan! Haha, he’s goth, just like you~!” 

 

Kihei hands the small butterfl--- moth, it’s a moth, he hands the moth to Ryujiro, and Ryujiro carefully cradles it in his calloused hands. The legs tickle his hand a little bit, like the creepy crawly sensation of finding a spider on your leg. Well, it’s pretty much the exact same, really, but this one is dead. It’s so pretty, though, and Ryujiro almost expects it to flap its wings and fly away at any moment. But it doesn’t. 

 

“Since that one’s really small, you might not be able to pin it…” Kihei leans across the table to grab at a small glass jar and a cork lid to fit it. Ryujiro watches him stretch and reach, his back arching and his shirt riding up, revealing smooth skin. “It’ll probably be better if you keep it in one of these-” Kihei’s words are cut off as he jumps, slightly, when Ryujiro puts his cold hand on Kihei’s back, right in the place where his shirt used to be. Was it to help steady Kihei? Or was it so Ryujiro had an excuse to be handsy? Who knows. 

 

“Here.” Kihei huffs, when he’s back in his original position, and he places a small jar and cork topper in front of Ryujiro, along with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “You’ll want to fill that up halfway, and then put the moth in there.” Ryujiro does as he’s told, and tries his hardest not to let any of the rubbing alcohol spill, but some drops get on the table. “Don’t worry about it.” Kihei says, and wipes it up for him, all the while carefully studying Ryujiro’s every movement with intent. “You’ll want to spread out the wings for the prettiest display before you put it in.” 

 

Ryujiro’s hands shake, slightly, as he tries to pry the tiny wings apart. Rigor mortis must’ve set in, or whatever the moth equivalent is, because Ryujiro has to toe a fine line between ‘spreading the wings’ and ‘ripping this little thing in half’. Kihei, again, just watches, giving Ryujiro his independence and expressing his faith in him. ‘Don’t rip it don’t snap it don’t break it don’t hurt it’ goes through his head a million times in the few moments he spends trying to make it look right. One Ryujiro is satisfied, he grabs one of the pairs of tweezers on the table and fits the moth in through the mouth of the jar, making sure its not crooked and adjusting as need be. And once he’s done with that, Kihei hands him the rubbing alcohol again. 

 

After filling up the jar the rest of the way and adding on the cork lid, Ryujiro beams at the little moth with pride. “See! He’s a cutie, ain’t he?” Ryujiro says, offering it to Kihei to hold. Kihei turns the jar over in his hands a few times. They really are pretty similar, Ryujiro thinks, especially since Kihei is wearing a soft pink shirt. Maybe bugs aren’t that bad, especially ones as adorable as this moth. 

 

Kihei puts the preserved moth back into Ryujiro’s hands, forcing his fingers closed around it. “Take good care of him, alright? He’ll be a good luck charm for you!” Kihei smiles at him, brightly, and Ryujiro feels his heart clench in his chest. This whole thing was just so relaxed, so casual, so domestic that it makes Ryujiro feel his heart race and his stomach flip a million times over. He is in love. Completely, helplessly, utterly in love with the boy in front of him, a boy who preserves butterflies and listens to true crime podcasts. A boy who does flower arrangements and knife tricks. Who pretends that he’s only sweet to get something out of others, but really, even if he isn’t usually all sugar, spice, and everything nice, really is a good person. He really does care. 

 

_ Does Ryujiro deserve him?  _

 

“Ehehe… don’t just stop and stare at me like that, Ryu-chan.” Kihei leans up to give him a quick peck on the lips, soft and slow. “C’mon, I’ll do mine now. Pinning them is a little different.” Pinning them is, in fact, a lot different, as Ryujiro soon learns, and it’s also quite a bit scarier. 

 

Kihei grabs what he calls a ‘pinning board’ and spreads it out, adjusting the size to fit his need. He pulls close a series of pincushions, but they don’t look like what Ryujiro is used to. The pins are a lot bigger, and come in different sizes, all separated for ease of access. Kihei, without even flinching, takes the large, dark butterfly in his hands and quickly sticks a pin right through the middle of it, piercing all the way through with little to no resistance. Ryujiro cringes away as he watches, surprised that Kihei isn’t even a little phased. It must be from all the experience, 

 

“I told you it was creepy.” Kihei says, looking at Ryujiro as he pushes the pin into the board. “You can look away. I’ll be done soon.” Ryujiro doesn’t look away, though, instead he’s mesmerized not by Kihei’s elegant movements as he carefully spreads the wings of the butterfly with one of the pins, but rather by Kihei’s expression. He bites his bottom lip, and his face tenses, carefully, trying not to make a single mistake, especially since he has an audience now. Some of Kihei’s hair falls from where it’s bobby pinned in place with two hair clips, and he leaves it be, the hair cascading forward in front of his ear. Ryujiro, for the second time in the last ten minutes, realizes just how helplessly in love he is. 

 

As Kihei finishes pushing a pin through one of the wings, he reaches over to grab another one, without looking, and as his hand searches the table his finger is pricked on a loose pin, embedding itself in the skin and drawing blood.  _ “Shit.”   _ Kihei whispers, quietly. And he pulls his hand back, pulling out the pin and applying pressure to the point of contact. “Can you get me a band-aid, I keep some in the first dresser drawer on the left.” Kihei asks, turning to Ryujiro, and he scrambles to get up and across the room as fast as possible, almost tripping over his boyfriend on the way. 

 

Ryujiro pulls open the drawer, and he doesn’t know why he expected it to be easy. It’s a junk drawer, of course, filled with all kinds of things Kihei never realizes he’ll need until he does. Batteries. Extra phone chargers. Boxes of tissues. Scissors. Condoms and lube? Ryujiro pretends he didn’t see those. Duct tape. Playing cards. And, finally, band aids! They have Hello Kitty designs on them, and Ryujiro pulls one out of the box before shoving it back into the drawer and closing it up. 

 

“Here.” He says, leaning down over Kihei and pulling the bandage out of its sterile casing. Ryujiro wraps the band-aid around Kihei’s finger, making sure it’s not too tight. “All better now?” he asks. 

 

“Yeah… thanks.” Kihei says, softly, and Ryujiro takes Kihei’s hand and pulls it up to his mouth, gently kissing the back of it. 

 

“A kiss to make it feel better.” Ryujiro says, and Kihei laughs at him. Kihei’s hand goes around to the back of Ryujiro’s neck and pulls him down for a kiss. It’s slightly uncomfortable, having to lean down that far, but he does it for Kihei. Because he’s in love. 

 

When Ryujiro comes to sit back down, Kihei abandons his seat and instead comes to sit in Ryujiro’s lap, positioning himself between his legs. Ryujiro’s arms keep Kihei locked in, and Ryujiro rests his head on Kihei’s shoulder, watching intently as Kihei carefully finishes pinning the other wing to the pinning board. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


_ “Good luck, huh?” Ryujiro thinks, turning the little jar over and over in his hands. He hears the blaring music of the concert through the walls, he hears Kihei’s voice, energetic and high pitched, hitting every note perfectly. Of course Kihei wouldn’t let their breakup get to him. He’s the perfect Mitsuharu Kihei (though Ryujiro thinks Hada Kihei would sound better).  _

 

_ Kihei’s image song was the last one slated to be performed for the night. Ryujiro double checked and triple checked the set list time and time again. He knew the song well, he’s heard it time and time again, recorded, in concert, in practice, while Kihei’s in the shower, in the car, practically everywhere. It’s hard to escape it when your (ex)boyfriend is an idol.  _

 

_ Ryujiro thumbs the little jar with his hands to pass the time. He still remembers making it, remembers it well, remembers the feeling of Kihei’s lips on his as he said it would be for good luck. Ryujiro hopes he was right, after all this time. The moth is still in there, as pretty and pink and gold as ever, preserved in time forever. Ryujiro wishes he could go back to the moment when he made this, wishes he could stay there forever, happy, with Kihei in his arms.  _

 

_ When his hands start shaking, that’s when he puts the little jar back into his pocket and instead focuses on his own silent prayers. The final song closes out, and Kihei says his goodnights, and not long afterwards Ryujiro hears footsteps coming down the hall, and he sees Rai and Yamada, slightly sweaty, holding water bottles and talking to each other. They look so happy, Ryujiro thinks.  _

 

_ “Oh! Ryujiro. What’s up?” Rai asks, when he notices Ryujiro standing there.  _

 

_ “Can I talk to Kihei for a minute?”  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
